The purgatory of
The most prominent modern historian of the idea of Purgatory, Jacques Le Goff, dates the term purgatorium to around 1170; and in 1215 the Church began to set out the actual length of time in Purgatory required of souls.
The idea of Purgatory as a physical place (like heaven and hell) was "born" in the late 11th century. Medieval theologians concluded that the purgatorial punishments consisted of material fire. The Western formulation of purgatory proved to be a sticking point in the Great Schism between East and West.
The Catholic Church teaches that death is not the end. When someone dies, it is only their physical body that stops living. The eternal part of a person, the soul, may go to Heaven or Purgatory . Purgatory is where the souls with unforgiven sins will go, so that they can be purified and reach Heaven.
The sale of indulgences for time off in Purgatory fueled the Protestant Reformation in 1517, which in turn sparked a series of wars between European Christians. In 1563, Catholics formally outlawed the sale of indulgences.
Catholicism. The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification, which the church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".
Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) wrote, for instance, 'As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. ' This is the purifying fire of Purgatory.
Purgatory in world religions
The idea of purification or temporary punishment after death has ancient roots and is well attested in early Christian literature. The conception of purgatory as a geographically situated place is largely the achievement of medieval Christian piety and imagination.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is a place where sins are punished and a soul is purified before it can go to Heaven. This is called Purgatory .
The gate of Purgatory, Peter's Gate, is guarded by an angel bearing a naked sword, his countenance too bright for Dante's sight to sustain. In reply to the angel's challenge, Virgil declares that a lady from heaven brought them there and directed them to the gate.
Purgatory is believed by some as a place for sinners who have God's grace but need to endure “temporal punishment” for transgressions that did not receive payment during their lives. In other words, if anyone has any leftover sin, this place purges them of it, before they reach the gates of heaven.
According to the writings and visions of countless saints and theologians, most people who die in a state of grace are not yet fully purified. Their souls are not ready to see God face-to-face or to embrace perfect union with Him.
A Spanish theologian from the late Middle Ages once argued that the average Christian spends 1000 to 2000 years in purgatory (according to Stephen Greenblatt's Hamlet in Purgatory). But there's no official take on the average sentence.
The Limbo of the Fathers is an official doctrine of the Catholic Church, but the Limbo of the Infants is not.
According to Catholic tradition, the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. The New Testament records Jesus' activities and teaching, His appointment of the twelve Apostles, and His instructions to them to continue His work.
For Catholics, though not Irish Protestants, this formed part of a spiritual cosmos which viewed Heaven and Hell as opposite poles, with Purgatory and Limbo occupying rather vaguely defined intermediate positions. But Limbo appears to have disappeared off the spiritual map."
Unlike limbo, purgatory is a doctrine of the Church, yet its representations have undergone significant modifications.
They are “states of being” because all of them are in the presence of God who is everywhere in and by love. Heaven is being with God, purgatory is being with God and longing for the purifying pain of forgiveness, hell is choosing not to accept God's loving purifying forgiveness.
We should be praying for their souls out of love for them. But even if we have no dead relatives that we know of, the souls in purgatory are still our spiritual brothers and sisters. We are related by baptism into Christ, and this familial relationship should spur us to act on their behalf.
We lost the book! Like all of our ancient books, the Book of Maccabees was originally written in Hebrew but over the years — because of persecution, exiles and book burnings — the Hebrew version was lost, and the text only survived in a translation made into Greek called the Septuagint.
Divided into three sections, Antepurgatory, Purgatory proper, and the Earthly Paradise, the lower slopes are reserved for souls whose penance was delayed.
One particularly well-known Catholic method of exploitation in the Middle Ages was the practice of selling indulgences, a monetary payment of penalty which, supposedly, absolved one of past sins and/or released one from purgatory after death.
On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II sent his first e-mail apologizing for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in Australia, and to China for the behavior of Catholic missionaries in colonial times.
Prayer to Mary is a way of being drawn towards Jesus. Just as a Protestant might go to a pastor to say, “pray for me” with the assumption that your pastor will point you to Jesus—so also a Catholic will pray to Mary with the confidence that she will direct us to the Lord Jesus. It is an act of intercession.